1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for preventing the theft of dehydrogenation organic fuel containing hydrogen.
2. Description of the Related Art
As global warming due to carbon dioxide or the like becomes serious, hydrogen has gained the spotlight as an energy source responsible for the next generation in place of fossil fuel. Fuel-cell-power generation systems utilizing hydrogen to generate electric power are capable of efficiently recovering electricity and thermal energy produced when hydrogen and oxygen are reacted with each other and they are turned into water. In recent years, the technology therefore have been rapidly developed as a power source for a wide variety of applications, including automobiles, home generating equipment, vending machines, cellular phones, and the like.
Meanwhile, the transportation, storage, and supply systems for hydrogen, which are indispensable for using hydrogen as fuel, have become a major challenge. Since hydrogen is gaseous at ordinary temperature, it is more difficult to store and transport than liquid and solid. In addition, hydrogen is a combustible material and there is a possibility of explosion when it is mixed with air at a predetermined mixture ratio.
As one of technologies for solving this problem, organic hydride systems using hydrocarbon such as methylcyclohexane and decalin has attracted attention (for example, see JP-A-2004-107138). They provide a hydrogen storage method excellent in safety, transportability, storage capability, and cost reduction capability by mounting a reformer in an automobile. Since these hydrocarbons are liquid at ordinary temperature, they are excellent in transportability.
Methylcyclohexane and toluene are cyclic hydrocarbons identical in carbon number. However, toluene is an unsaturated hydrocarbon with carbons doubly-bonded with each other while methylcyclohexane is a saturated hydrocarbon without double bonds. Methylcyclohexane is obtained by the hydrogenation reaction of toluene and toluene is obtained by the dehydrogenation reaction of methylcyclohexane. That is, hydrogen can be stored and supplied by utilizing the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions of these hydrocarbons.
However, the above technology also involves a lot of problems. For example, when methylcyclohexane is used as hydrogen carrier to dehydrogenate it in an automobile, methylcyclohexane that induced a dehydrogenation reaction in a reformer produces toluene and hydrogen and this toluene is stored as dehydrogenation fuel in the automobile.
Toluene is an organic solvent used as adhesive or solvent in painting, bonding, and the like. If high-concentration toluene is rapidly inhaled or low-concentration toluene is chronically inhaled, an affection may be caused in various internal organs including nervous system. Similarly, since toluene is highly volatile at ordinary temperature and ordinary pressure and easily soluble in fat, it is absorbed through a respiratory tract or a skin mucosa and causes toxicity to various internal organs. When a person inhales toluene, he/she suffers from central nervous system damage and has a feeling of euphoria at an early stage and subsequently develops giddiness, confusion, hallucination, or disturbance of consciousness. Chronically intoxicated persons produce cerebeller ataxic symptoms, such as walking in tottering gait, incapability to correctly grasp an object, and hand tremor when making action, and other various symptoms, such as tinnitus, paropsia, and electroencephalogram abnormality. Though toluene is a agent that has harmful effect on human bodies as mentioned above, some people are willing to inhale toluene to get the initial feeling of euphoria.
For this reason, toluene is specified as non-medicinal deleterious agent by the Poisonous and Deleterious Agents Control Law and it is difficult for ordinary citizens to get it. However, if toluene is stored as dehydrogenation fuel in an automobile or a fueling station when organic hydride is distributed, a problem of the possibility of theft arises.
With the above-mentioned problem taken into account, it is an object of the invention to provide a dehydrogenation fuel theft prevention system for preventing the theft of dehydrogenation organic fuel containing hydrogen.